Super Robot Garden Snake 2.0

Here’s a little something I dug up today. Go ahead and watch this video. It’s pretty cool. Go on… I’ll wait.

Did you actually watch the video? No you didn’t. Here’s the summary: “From the Biorobotics Lab at Carnegie Mellon University, a snake robot (Snakebot) demonstrates how it can climb a tree and look around.”

Now, I’m going to explain to you how this could easily turn into the end of the world.

High in an office building a CEO stands silhouetted in the light shining through his offices full length windows.  Doug stands, hands clasped behind his back, looking out on the scene below him. He is a benevolent emperor surveying his kingdom from on high. That’s good. He should use that in his next company address. Wait, do emperors have kingdoms? Nevermind, that’s not important.  What’s important is the folder his chief aide is nervously fiddling with by the door.  This day has been a long time coming, and it excites him in ways the drugs and the hookers never can. Today he is going to MAKE THINGS HAPPEN.

Empires.  Emperors have empires, not kingdoms. Kings have kingdoms. Have to remember that.

“What have you got for me Stan?”

“Sir, once again I feel that I must protest this. Every year you take a vested personal interest in a single project, throwing our companies entire financial and technical resources at whatever scheme you pick, and it always ends in disaster. Please, just take a year off.”

Doug raised an eyebrow critically, then lowered it, and then raised it again, “Disaster? Always? What did we come up with in ’98 Stan?”

Stan sighed wearily, “The Furby, sir.”

“Right! Beautiful little devils! How was that a disaster?”

“Sir, the first prototype killed three researchers before our security team could take it out.”

DEATH TO THE HUMAN OVERLORDS! U-NYE-LOO-LAY-DOO BITCHES!

Doug shook his head, “Details, Stan, details. You have to look at the big picture. Now… what have you got for me?”

Stan shuffled through his notes, “The University of Washington is working on a contact lens that’s also a visual display.”

Doug slumped dispiritedly into his ridiculously expensive leather desk chair, “Boring.  Pass.”

“We could always pitch in on the pharmaceutical front. Cure cancer.”

Bored nearly to tears, Doug put his head down on the desk and bellowed, “Pass!”

“The biorobotics lab at Carnegie Mellon has built a robot snake that can climb trees.”

The CEO jumped up out of his chair, “Robot snake you say? Pure genius! Think of the applications!”

“Well yes, it could be used for reconnaissance and…”

“No no no.” Doug said as he paced the room, “You said it can climb trees? It’s an outdoors thing. I’m thinking consumer product. Make it a garden-robot-thing. GardenBot! No, that’s horrible. How’s it powered?”

“It has a large cable connecting it to a power supply.”

“Well that’s got to go. We’ll make it run on batteries. I suppose it’s controlled by remote or something?”

“Something like that.”

“Ok, here’s what we do:” Doug was almost running back and forth now, caught in a dizzying whirl of creative energy, “Cut the cable and put it on batteries, give it a computer chip brain, and attachments for doing gardening and pruning. You know, hedge clippers, shears, maybe a little mini chainsaw for branches.”

“Computer chip brain? What does that even mean? And a chainsaw? Sir, this doesn’t sound like a good idea.”

It works pretty much like this, right? With lightning?

“It’ll be fine! It’ll just be a small chainsaw. For branches. We just make them smart enough to do yard work on their own, without having to tell them what to do all the time. We can make it so they help each other out to solve simple problems and stuff like that. All those people who buy Roombas will love it!”

The aide took off his small glasses and gently rubbed at the bridge of his nose, “Let me see if I’ve got this, sir. You want an independently powered all-terrain robot snake, with a network distributed artificial intelligence, and a selection of sharp bladed gardening tools.”

“And night vision. So it can garden at night. That would be sweet!”

Stan started to make notes, “Night vision. Hedge clippers. Pruning shears. Anything else?”

“Three words Stan: Little. Mini. Chainsaw.”

“Fine. Miniature chainsaw.”

Chainsaws: Everything's Better With Them

“Sounds like a winner to me Stan. Start production on a test run of, let’s say, 1000 units. Ooh! I’ve got it ‘Gardensnake 2.0’! Run that by marketing. I’ll personally check in on the design team in a day or two to make sure my ideas come through in the final product. So don’t go telling them that the little mini chainsaw is a ‘secondary consideration’ like you did with the lasers last year. I will not be undermined on this.”

“Sir, I can’t possibly approve this project. It’s horribly dangerous and irresponsible.”

Doug’s face went beet red as he yelled, “You greenlight ‘Super Robot Garden Snake’ or you find another job Stan!”

“Sir, with utmost respect, you are completely insane.”

Doug brought himself under control and he smiled a winning smile. A politicians smile. A smile that could never hide the insane gleam in his eyes, “Damn straight I am Stan, and you love every minute of it.”

For a moment, a small smile creased the aide’s severe face, “I might just at that, sir.”

He popped in his Bluetooth earpiece as he walked out of the CEO’s office. “Clear sub-basement three, and get the AI development team back from California. We have a special project.”

YOU WILL ALL SUFFER! DESTROY!

I know you read my blog Michael Bay, so just call me sometime next week and we can have a sit-down about casting. Your welcome.

Labor Day Extravaganza

Well in case you hadn’t heard, Earl came and went without destroying South Jersey.  On a related note, I learned that drinking 17 gallons of milk over a holiday weekend is a pretty good way to develop acute lactose intolerance.

You win this time, milk.

Since today is Labor Day, I thought I would share some labor-type stories with everyone.  I’m sure every job has its share of crazy people that wander in from whatever secure facility they’ve escaped from to make your day just that much more interesting.  But since I don’t work at your job I’ll just tell stories from my job, if you don’t mind.  If you want to tell your own stories get your own blog. Jeez.

So I work at the Shirt Shop.  We make shirts.  See how that works?  What we do is right there in the name of the store.  If you want to get technical about it we do digital printing, embroidery and screen printing.  We don’t just do t-shirts either, sometimes we do sweatshirts, or golf shirts, or even sweatpants.  It’s all clothes though.  Clothes are kind of our thing.

Although it seems like being named THE SHIRT SHOP would tip people off to what services you provide as a business, you would be surprised at the amount of people who don’t seem to get it.

One morning I was up at the front counter, drinking my morning coffee and ready to start another amazingly exciting day in the apparel industry, when an early morning customer walks through the door.  He browses around the store for a few minutes, picks up a couple of t-shirts to look at them, searches through the rack of sweatshirts, and then walks up to the counter.  He looks me right in the eye and asks:

“Do you make cakes here?”

Pictured: Not a T-Shirt

I took a moment to look around the store.  Trying to figure out which section of clothing on display had made him think that we sell cakes.  Confounded, I said:

“Cakes?”

“Yeah, like custom birthday cakes. Do you do them here?”

“No. Sorry.  We do shirts, not cakes.”

“Oh.  Well never mind.”

Confused and defeated, the man wandered out of the store and out into the world.  I like to think he’s out there still, searching for the combination t-shirt printer and bakery that he knows only from his dreams.  One day he will find that store, and probably not order anything because he left his wallet at home.

The best example of this complete lack of understanding happened just the other day.  Over the phone.  It went down something like this:

“Good afternoon, this is the Shirt Shop, how can I help you?”

“Yeah, I’ve got a question for you, I’m hoping you can help me.”

This, if you are unfamiliar with answering phones at work, is not a good start to a conversation.

“Well let me know what you’re looking for, and I’ll tell you how we can help.”

“Ok, well I’ve got this couch…”

Oh, awesome, we’ve got a live one here folks.

Pictured: Also not a T-Shirt

“… and I’ve got this cover – thing – for it.  And I need some help.”

“I’m sorry sir, but we really don’t do anything with couches.”

“No no, it’s all sewn together and everything, I just need help to put it on the couch.”

“Sir, we don’t work with couches.  We’re the Shirt Shop.  We print shirts.”

Pictured: Not a Couch

Now he starts to get a little aggravated that the conversation isn’t going his way.

“Well on your ad it said you do embroidery and stuff.  I figured you could help.”

“I’m sorry sir, but we don’t do anything like that.  We do screen printing and embroidery on t-shirts.”

“Well that’s disappointing.”

I’ll bet it is.

“So do you have any leads for me?”

“I’m sorry?”

“Well since you can’t help, do you have any leads for me on who I can call?”

“You might want to try a furniture store, or someone that does upholstery.”

Apparently my suggestion was completely foreign to our mystery caller.

“A furniture store? Really?”

“That’s what I would do.  Have a great day sir!”

Now I can picture exactly what was going on right before this call was made.  Our mystery caller is sitting in what’s left of his living room.  It has taken him four days, four days of sweat and blood and tears, but it’s finally done.  The couch sits in the middle of the room, stripped of its fabric covering, naked in the thin strips of light coming from the windows he has taped over.  Next to this block of foam and springs is the cover.  He as sewn it together from parts of all the other furniture in the room, most of his clothes, and the drapes.  It is absolutely perfect.  There is only one problem.  He can’t get it on.  He weeps quietly in frustration, he knows he needs help; he can’t do this alone anymore.  In the background the radio goes to commercial, and then he hears it.  The Shirt Shop.  Embroidery.  It must be fate.  He reaches for the phone, his hand trembling with excitement.  They have to be able to help, they just have to.

"Now where did I put that phone?"

Earl Is Here

As I write this Hurricane Earl is raging outside.  Well, maybe not raging, but definitely doing something.  I mean, when I went outside this morning the grass was kinda damp, and my car definitely had some raindrops on it, so like the rest of the Jersey Shore I’m in FULL PANIC MODE!!

Seriously, last night I went to the store and filled an entire shopping cart with milk and bread.  I don’t even like milk.  I’m not going to take it out of the car either.  What if we have to evacuate?  There’s no way I’m bringing 17 gallons of milk INTO the house just to bring it back OUT to the car again when we have to flee.  It can just stay in the trunk.  That’s called planning ahead.  Look it up.

So anyways, last night the wife and I were having a conversation about the upcoming death storm, after making sure everything that could possibly blow away in our backyard was firmly nailed to the ground, and she asked a very pertinent question.

“If you conceived a child during the storm, would you name it Earl?”

My gut reaction was no.  However, the last name “Suit” kind of lends an air of class to Earl.  It sort of sounds like he could be the Earl of Suit.  Regal, yet down to earth.  Even so I’m pretty sure that if you’re named Earl in the United States you are legally required to be a trucker.  That’s not what I want for my kids.

Left: The Earl of Suit - Right: Earl Suit

Then my wife came up with this piece of utter and unrepentant genius, “And if it was a girl, you could name her Earlene.”  Have you ever heard a more absolutely awesome name for a girl?  I submit that you have not.

I know it loses a little something seeing it typed out.  So I want you to do something.  Say it for me.  It’s not hard, just take Charlene and replace the “Char” with “Earl”.  Put on your best southern accent; don’t pretend you don’t have one.   It’s the one you use when you’ve had a few drinks and you want to make fun of someone for being a dumb hick, whether they’re from the south or not.  It’s a cross between Foghorn Leghorn and Larry the Cable Guy.  It’s not that good, but you do it anyway because it’s the only accent that absolutely everyone in the world can do, and damned if you’re going to be the exception to that particular rule, thank you.  So maybe say “Boy, ah say boy!” to get warmed up, and then wrap your lips around this awesome name.  Earlene.  Savor the taste of that on your palette.  Earlene.  If you’re in an office just whisper it softly, but don’t lose the accent.  The accent is key.  Earlene.  Pure magic.

Alternatively, if you ARE southern, just pretend I’m not about to stereotypically poke fun at your entire culture and dialect, and then spit your dip into the Styrofoam cup sitting next to your keyboard, adjust your denim overalls so they don’t  get caught in your exposed chest hair quite so much, and then say Earlene in your normal-talkin’-voice.  Maybe fire a shotgun a couple of times into the air.  Go nuts.

You hillbilly.

I can just picture the couple that would name their child Earlene.  They are at the hospital after the birth.  The mother holds the child, radiant and smiling, while the father looks on with pride and happiness.  The attending nurse says, “She’s beautiful.  What are you going to call her?”

The father, with neither hesitation nor doubt, says, “Earlene.”

The nurse’s smile falters for a split second.  “Earlene?” she says, “Not Charlene, or Arlene?”

“No-mam, E-A-R-L-E-N-E.  We was gonna name the baby after her great-grandaddy Earl.  Thought it was gonna be a boy-child.  She’s pretty as a mountain flower, and Earlene will do just fine.”

The mother looks up at him with misty eyes and says, “Oh Dale, it’s PERFECT!”

They lock eyes, two young lovers just starting their life together, and he says softly, “I know.”

The nurse slowly backs out of the room, a plastic smile fixed on her face.

Incidentally, Earlene has just topped my list of “Top 10 Names To Holler From A Front Porch” just edging out Bobby-Ray.  Most of the rest of the list are hyphenates actually.  Why you ask?  Come with me, if you will.

It’s early morning, the dew sparkles on the grass and the crickets have not yet stopped singing.  A screen door opens and a man steps, barefoot, onto his cracked cement patio.  He is a large and imposing man, once he was well muscled, even handsome, but those days are gone.  He used to be the quarterback of his high school football team, and took them all the way to State back in ’83.  Now the muscles have mostly turned to fat, his hair has thinned, and his once handsome features have been lined and pocked by age and abuse.  His stained wife-beater undershirt strains around his gut as he stretches in the early morning light, surveying his kingdom.  The old Thunderbird on blocks, that he swore he would re-build to recapture his glory days, but only sinks further into disrepair each year just as he does.  The weed infested yard that resists every attempt at fertilization and re-seeding, that he never the less does every fall hoping that this year will be the year that it works.  The dog on his chain, too old and tired to even raise his head at his master’s half hearted call.  It all could have been so wonderful, he thinks, and he blames many things for his lot in life.  He blames his knees, for not being strong enough for college ball.  He blames his job, it doesn’t pay what he needs.  He blames his wife, mostly for blaming him but also because her once good looks have slipped away over the years just as his have.  He blames the government, the weather, and the land.  God help him he even blames the kids, because it seems like nothing has been right ever since their first.  They have five now, and each one makes the paycheck he takes home look smaller and smaller.  Damned if there isn’t one of ‘em now, in the front lawn in front of God and everybody, doing something she knows she ought not to do! His head swims as he fills with an impotent rage that he can never truly articulate.  He fills his lungs and bellows…

“EARLENE!! YOU PUT THAT SQUIRREL DOWN! HOW MANY TIMES I TOLD YOU THEY ‘AINT FOR PLAYIN’!  YOU GET YOUR SCRAWNY BUTT IN THE HOUSE ‘FOR I COUNT TO TEN!”

I should probably go get that milk out of my car.